Reports are coming from inside Cuba that confirm what we already suspected. The island is under siege. The population is being told to prepare for war.
The messages are stark. A cousin writes to family: “We’re here fighting with the blackouts, product of the oil shortage in our country, the situation each day gets more tense, food is scarce, and what little there is in the country is at high prices. The stores for products here are in UDS (United States Dollars), which here the salary is in CUP (national currency). There is shortage of drinking water, food, medicines and electricity. All we have left is that God doesn’t make a miracle.”
The stores sell food in dollars. The salaries are paid in pesos. The people are forced to buy bread with money they don’t have, in a currency they aren’t paid in, while the empire that prints the currency blocks them from earning it. That’s not a shortage. That’s a vise.
And then the messages shift. The daily struggle for survival becomes something else. The Civil Defense alerts start coming. Not suggestions. Instructions. Preparations for air strikes.
“Know your assigned protection place before the bombs fall. Prepare a bag with identification documents. A radio with alternative power. A light. Three days of ready-to-eat food. Drinking water. Medicine for chronic conditions. And if you have small children, bring toys to distract them.”
Toys. For the bunker. While the bombs fall.
“For fractures, don’t move the affected limb. For hemorrhages, press with a clean cloth and apply a tourniquet. Note the time. For open wounds, wash with abundant clean water. Don’t remove embedded objects.”
A population being told how to treat gunshot wounds and shrapnel injuries. A population being told to pack a bag and wait for the sirens. A population that’s already starving being told to prepare for bombs.
The oil blockade started in January. The U.S. seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in what CNBC called “an audacious military operation.” Venezuela was Cuba’s key provider of oil. The U.S. didn’t just sanction Cuban oil. The U.S. orchestrated the seizure of the guy giving Cuba the oil. They cut the pipeline and then pointed at the empty pipe and said “look, they’re failing.”
On Monday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on 11 Cuban officials and the country’s main intelligence agency. Trump’s executive order threatens third parties from selling oil to Havana with tariffs. The sanctions penalize companies that want to invest in Cuba or provide basic goods.
The economic warfare is working. That’s the point. The economic warfare is designed to create exactly the desperation we’re seeing. The U.S. blockade has cost Cuba over $1 trillion since 1960. The sanctions prevent medical supplies, food, fuel. The vise tightens every day.
And then the fraudulent case. Axios reported that Cuba acquired more than 300 military drones from Russia and Iran and discussed plans to attack U.S. targets including Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels, and potentially Key West. Classified intelligence. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same playbook as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. It’s the same playbook as the Gulf of Tonkin. It’s the same playbook as every U.S. intervention in Latin America. Create the threat. Sell the threat. Use the threat.
Operation Northwoods. 1962. The Joint Chiefs of Staff literally proposed blowing up an American ship and blaming Cuba to justify war. JFK said no. They wanted it then. They want it now. The “fraudulent case” isn’t a new strategy. It’s the only strategy they’ve ever had.
Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said it directly: “Without any legitimate excuse whatsoever, the U.S. government builds, day after day, a fraudulent case to justify the ruthless economic war against the Cuban people and the eventual military aggression.”
And they’re not hiding it. They’re announcing it.
Trump has talked about a “friendly takeover” of Havana. He’s said he could do anything he wanted with the country. He’s said he thinks he’ll have the “honor” of “taking Cuba.” The CANF (Cuban American National Foundation) chairman went on Squawk Box and talked about “regime change in the next few months” like he was discussing a corporate merger. “The process of bringing freedom and democratization to Cuba is going to take some twists and turns.”
They’re not somber. They’re not reluctant. They’re excited. They’re salivating. They’ve been waiting for this since the Bay of Pigs.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned that military aggression “would trigger a bloodbath with incalculable consequences.” He’s not being dramatic. He’s describing what happens when the most powerful military on earth attacks an island that has been starved for sixty years. He’s describing what happens when the bombs fall on the people who were already told to pack a bag with three days of food and wait for the sirens.
The same hand that signs the aid package for Israel signs the blockade on Cuba. The same hand that vetoes the ceasefire enforces the embargo. The same system that decides which children get to live decides which populations get to starve.
The cousin’s message ends with “All we have left is that God doesn’t make a miracle.”
The Civil Defense messages end with instructions for treating hemorrhages and packing bags for the bunker.
The sanctions end with starvation.
The fraudulent case ends with bombs.
And eleven million people are caught between all four.
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